6. The Simpsons
With 32 seasons and more than 700 episodes since 1989, this is the longest animated series ever aired in the United States. Cartoon heroes, it turns out, have a major advantage: they never age. Thus, Bart Simpson is forever the naughty boy, his sister Lisa is the nerdy student and their little sister Maggie is still a baby attached to her pacifier.
With a dumb dad and a kind mother, along with eccentric sub-characters that populate the fictional city of Springfield, in each episode the creators manage to write a funny plot that addresses America’s social and political issues and remains relevant. Even the opening of the series occasionally contains small and amusing surprises.